we'll be fine, he swore
by little red after the wolf
Summary: He lied. — rilaya, rucas, joshaya (tw: miscarriage, tw: death) sequel to "iloveyouiloveyouiloveyouiloveyou," she never says


**A/N: Just in case you wanted to cry again.**

i. (room 213)

Riley Friar is not stupid, she knows there is no sound coming from his chest. That doesn't mean she can just move her head. She's weighted down to him, stuck there.

The ring on her finger tells her she can't move. The vows they renewed last summer tell her that she will feel it pounding again. The dress in a little box with his suit tell her she has to stay. The world is screaming that she belongs there.

But she knows she's not going to hear anything. She knows that his heart is still forever.

"He's dead," she says, whisper quiet against his chest.

It doesn't feel true. She prepped for months, ever since he let the cancer fall from between his laps, and it's only just now hitting her that _she's not ready._

"I should have kissed him," she mutters, "he asked ... Ring power ..."

It's too late.

His heart is dead inside his ribs. Lucas Friar is gone. Her husband is gone. Dead.

(A little voice says she's free.)

Are her cheeks wet? Does she feel sad? She doesn't know. It's number than she'd expected. There's a sort of nothing to knowing he's dead. No part of her thinks she can ruin their vows even more and run to the girl with the long blonde hair. "Blonde beauty," he'd called her.

(Maybe she really wasn't the only one who loved Maya.)

"Honey?" Oh. Speak of the devil ... Or something like that.

She doesn't even lift her head. Maya just understands. Lucas Friar is dead. This is a fact. He died a half hour ago and she hasn't freed her fingers from his. He died a half hour ago and the nurse told her he would come back when Riley was ready. He died a half hour ago and she still hasn't accepted it.

She can feel a ring press against her palm. It's instinctual at this point, her fingers find Maya's.

Everything is not magically all better but at least it isn't so _cold_ anymore.

(Maya closes his eyes and Riley can't help but cry.)

ii. (the kitchen)

Her favorite thing about Zay is that he doesn't ask her if she's okay because the funeral is next week and he _knows_ that she doesn't have an answer. Instead, he puts together sandwiches with white bread cut into triangles and more pesto than she thinks she's ever eaten in her life and talks about the Knicks game he caught on TV and how he knows a chick who can get them all tickets to see their next game live.

She nods but doesn't smile even though she normally would go on a rant about them. Maya's hand is too close and too far from hers to rant about the Knicks.

"Would you wanna go to that too, Hart or is that just gonna be a Riley and me thing?" He asks, turning the radio down.

"That sounds like a you and Riley thing, I don't care for basketball," the blonde scoffs, glancing at Riley in hopes of a loud gasp.

There's not one.

They're quiet until the tea goes off, loud and high. Zay tries to grin like Lucas isn't dead before turning to get it. Maybe it'd cheer her up if she was even looking at him.

(It's through the corner of her eyes but she can't look away from Maya.)

She smiles just enough to tell him how much she loves his cooking and then he carries the conversation for her.

iii. (st patrick's cathedral)

The eulogy makes her eyes prickle but she doesn't let a single tear fall from her lashes. She's stronger than that. Dear God, let her be stronger than that.

"It's okay," Zay whispers to her earlobe, his breath warm and his eyes wet. He grips her hand tighter when she shakes her head.

Farkle's eyes ghost past hers, emptier than she think she looks. "I think Lucas wouldn't want us to be ... To be "strong." He'd want us to, to cry if that's how we felt."

Riley Friar will not cry.

She can't cry now.

It's too late.

She could've cried and kissed him on his death bed, she could've cried when he told her he was sick, she could've cried a thousand times but this is not one of them. She's already left tears in this church. Gammy's funeral killed her. This one can't hurt her.

(She won't let it.)

"You don't have to cry," Maya tells her, lips set just against her ear. Another hand grips tighter.

She takes a moment, not swallowing a lump in her throat or dabbing at her eyes with a hand that isn't free. Then she says, calmly, clearly, "I don't want to."

iv. (new york, new york)

Autumn is Maya's favorite season. She paints it all the time and she jumps around when the days get shorter again and she grabs the scarf Gammy knit her.

"The sky smells like pumpkin," she laughs, twirling around with her beanie (Josh's, really, but Maya will always say it's hers) slipping off her head and pulling Riley along.

"It does," Riley admits.

And then there's water falling down. She doesn't even mumble about not having an umbrella. She just ... Laughs. It's the first time she's really laughed since ... She doesn't know. It's been awhile. It's been a long while.

"May I have this dance?" Maya asks, grinning wildly. Something compels Riley to say yes. They haven't danced together since Riley was 13 (she specifically recalls not wanting to say yes to some boy, but what was his name?) and she hasn't slow danced at all since she was 24 and in that tiny, tiny kitchen with the boy she told herself was Prince Charming.

But now, now she's being spun and her scarf is spinning out around her and everything feels okay.

It doesn't even cross her mind that she's a widow now.

v. (the night)

She lets herself cry and it's terrible. Her eyes are swollen and red and her throat hurts from the sobbing. Fuck. Why did she let herself cry? Things shouldn't be this painful.

Can't she go back?

Of course she can't. Time is something she could never control. He couldn't either. He had so little control over time. She cries harder at that.

Everything is wrong. Where did everything go wrong? When did she start hurting this much?

"I don't know," she sobs, clutching her pillow. This bed is so much bigger without someone to share it with. Even the nights he passed out on the couch because she locked the bedroom door, it wasn't this empty. Or was it? Maybe it was but she never noticed because at least he was there.

She thinks everything could have been okay if she had had the guts to tell Maya she loves her.

(Or maybe it was something else.)

One hand finds its way to her stomach and she clutches it so tightly. It's empty. It's been empty. She's felt so much lighter ever since ... She hates it.

She hates the emptiness in her bed and in her stomach.

"You," she hiccups into the pillow, "you swore ... We'd be fine."

They're not at all fine.

vi. (their apartment)

The buzzer wakes her up at 10 am on Sunday when she should be in church or eating cereal or absolutely anything but sleeping. "It's Farkle, let me up, Riley." She doesn't groan or sigh and she lets him up right away.

She's greeted with paper bags filled with groceries. It's not what she expected, especially not from Farkle.

"What's this?" She asks, bleary eyed.

"Food," he says, setting it down on her kitchen counter and beginning to unpack it. "Since I checked your credit card statement and you haven't been buying groceries regularly — and I _know_ you don't use cash for groceries, don't bullshit me, Riley Friar — I decided to take matters into my own hands. And, yes, yes, I can afford it and the husband said he was okay with me spending money like this on you."

She doesn't blink. She hadn't even realized she hadn't been eating properly.

"Also, your eyes are red so either you were crying or you had an allergic reaction and I need to know which before I call either 911 or Maya for an epi pen because I will do it, don't doubt what I'll do for my friends," he says in a single breath.

"Farkle, I would never doubt what you would do for your friends," she says, slowly.

He seems satisfied with that but he still shines a flashlight into her eye to do a quick check up.

A few minutes later, he's settled into her apartment and onto her couch with her and has turned on the TV to some medical drama he's obsessed with. She stays quiet as he rambles on about it and tells her his opinion on absolutely everyone in the show — actors and characters — and also breaking into half way sensical rants about precedures not being done right.

"Have you been eating?" He asks. It's too sudden and she's caught of guard before she can form a clear yes — a lie. "What would Maya say?"

She doesn't want to think about that.

She doesn't want to think about anything anymore.

"What would Lucas say about you spending so much of your money on me?" She retorts. She regrets it the second she says it and for once in her life, a second is not too late.

They eat Chinese food in silence but she thinks they're okay.

vii. (her apartment)

It's raining again but she walks through the city with her hands in her pocket and somewhere to belong. Her feet have long since adjusted to the path to Maya Hart's shared apartment (but Josh is out of town tonight, working on photography with Shawn).

They're going to watch movies.

Mean Girls, Disney, movie musicals, Leonardo DiCaprio movies (Maya has an unhealthy obsession with him). It'll be just like when they were kids (and Lucas was still alive and she had never miscarried a little girl). She's been looking forward to it all week.

It's as great she'd thought it would be. They laugh and eat weird food and dance and sing along to everything. She stays the night.

Maya is fast asleep in the same bed as her like when they were little kids but it's not at all like that. Riley is wide awake, eyes unwilling to shut and dream of him and her and all that went wrong.

She watches Maya and whispers to herself that it's not creepy and it's okay.

Their limbs are too tangled up for her to go get water or take sleeping pills. Maya is too beautiful for her to want to anyways.

Riley has never wanted to kiss someone more, not even when she fell on Lucas' lap in that subway all those years ago.

Her body is screaming for her to just do it. She can't even remember her uncle's name or that he's Maya's fiance. There has never been a Lucas Friar. There has never been anyone else but Maya Hart and her sitting in that window for hours and talking forever and holding her hand. They are all that is in this world.

(She still remembers the day she realized Maya Hart _was_ the world.)

Riley wants to kiss her best friend in the entire, entire, entire world so goddamn badly. She wants to, needs to, it's the only thing that can put out the fire in her soul and burning up her eyes.

She doesn't.

viii. (austin, texas)

The minute Zay hugs her, she stops being jet-lagged. This is what she came to Texas for. This means everything is going to be okay. Everything has to be okay eventually. Lucas promised her it would be okay.

"Alright, now that you're in Texas, you gotta be a farmgirl or a cowgirl, Friar, — " she doesn't point out that he's picking her up from an airport in the city to go to what is not at all a farm in Austin "alright?"

She agrees and he has on a horse faster than she expected. She's better at riding than she would have thought considering how many people have applauded her just for standing up safely. They're racing within an hour and he's shouting stories from his childhood, about him and Lucas and some girl named Sally Mae.

Riley is laughing, practically in tears from all the stories and the wind in her face, wipping her hair back. Her cowboy hat flew off a long time ago but Zay was too busy shouting about how Sally Mae used to pound her fist into her hand and tell Lucas it was time for his daily beating to even notice.

It's the most she's laughed in a long time.

(She didn't expect to laugh because of Lucas ever again.)

"I bet Hart used to do that kinda thing to you, like what Sally Mae did to Mad-dog," he grins at her. She'd almost forgotten Maya even existed — Maya with the eyes that kill her and the smile like home.

She nods and kicks his ass one last time before they get what he calls supper.

(He asks if she's okay and, for the first time, the answer is yes.)

viv. (jfk)

She almost screams when she sees Maya with Josh at her side and their hands intertwined. She was so, so, so okay. She was happy. She was smiling. And Maya killed it in a second.

Zay nudges her and points to them like she hadn't seen.

Riley composes herself and smiles at him because she's happy that her best friend in the entire world and her favorite (but don't tell Eric) uncle are happy. She desperately wants Maya to be happy.

(And no, not with her because she's already happy.)

She buries her head in Maya's shoulder when they hug and they are the world again. Until Josh picks her up and spins her because he hasn't seen his niece since the funeral and now she's smiling. She smiles brighter and resists the urge to scream everything wrong with this.

(She wonders quietly if he would call off the engagement.)

x. (henry street)

Maya makes a phone call in the car and then they're all getting pizza together. Farkle, Cory, Topanaga, Auggie and Ave, Katy, Shawn, everyone who matters, even Smackle put aside her law firm for this.

(Except Lucas Friar.)

Riley sits right next to Maya and aw's over Ava showing off the diamond ring Auggie put on her finger even though they've been married since they were little kids. It doesn't show but Maya's fingers kill her the whole time, drawing patterns on her hand.

Everything is great again. They're laughing and smiling and it's like Lucas isn't even dead.

And then Josh stands up, grinning ear to ear, and says the one thing she doesn't want to hear.

"We're pregnant."

Instead of screaming, or crying, or dying, Riley hugs him. She's the first to congratulate them because she's happy for them.

(She's only a little jealous of Lucas.)

xi. (w 55th street)

Drinking tea by yourself is only a little bit lonely. She's fine. She'll be a godmother soon and she has two weddings to look forward to and everything is fine. She's getting over everything bad and just remembering her ex-boyfriends.

It's funny. Really, she swears.

Farkle was the only one who didn't cheat and she thinks that's funny. It's funny. It has to be. It's funny and she's perfectly fine with it. She's fine with everything.

(Lucas was voted most likely to be okay with anything.)

Her eyes sting and that's it.

(Maybe she should visit his grave.)

Is that what good widows do? She doesn't know.

(They weren't good spouses.)

Her entire body does not ache as she thinks of the funeral. Riley Matthews — he set her free of being Riley Friar, after all — is fine. Perfectly, completely, absolutely fine. Nothing hurts her now.

She doesn't grieve at his grave after she finishes her tea.

xii. (the bay window)

She sits in a peaceful sort of quiet with her head on Maya's shoulder. They could be seventeen again, hell, they could be younger. Fifteen, fourteen. He could be alive.

Riley tries not to think of that.

(Her stomach hurts.)

"Peaches," she whispers.

Maya grins at the old pet name. "Yeah, pumpkin?"

Silence. It's just a moment. A hand over a stomach, a sigh through empty lips. "What would have happened if I hadn't miscarried?"

A cell phone rings before Maya can answer. It's still Darth Vader's theme. She answers politely, tamely. It's another moment.

Then she drops the phone and is sobbing.

"Josh is dead. C— car crash ... Drunk — hic — driver."

(Lucas was wrong. Lucas was so, so wrong.)

* * *

 _reviews are love. give, well, everyone some._

 **A/N: No, I will not be writing anymore chapters for this. Sorry but someone I've had a lot of problems with and who makes me feel very, very uncomfortable has both favorited and followed it despite the fact that I blocked them (which makes me feel even more uncomfortable). It might sound childish to some of you but I've had people who make me very fucking uncomfortable before get my phone number and I just don't want to encourage people who make me uncomfortable in anyway. Which is very hard because this person, despite me contacting them and asking them to not read my stories or anything of the sort, is also following me on this site.**


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